One day last week I was sitting with a friend of mine and she was on Tinder. Since I think of myself as a Tinder pro, she was asking more advice on the guys she wasn't sure about.
Suddenly, she came across a guy she knew that had been involved with a friend of hers. She tells me that she knows him and that he's cool and everything but that she'd never do that to her friend. And in that moment, I discovered that she truly is a good person.
Granted, I already knew that about her. But a person who isn't willing to break the like, number one rule of friendship, is definitely an A+ human being.
Friends are supposed to be there for each other. They're the people you get dinner with and talk to every day. They go to events and parties with you. They accompany you shopping and tell you what would go best with your new jeans. But you also let them screen your partner, give you relationship advice and maybe they even tell you to break up with them.
But what if all along they were telling you to break up with them because they wanted your partner to themselves. How would that make you feel? Probably terrible.
Some people's excuse is "you shouldn't care what your ex is doing," but most of the time, we don't. We just trust our friends and wouldn't expect them to stab us in the back after we have a falling out with a person.
My other thing is, how could you knowingly date someone after someone else has told you about all of that person's flaws and the things they've done to someone that's supposed to be your friend?
Just because your friend tells you, "Sure, you can date them. I don't care," it is 100% not an invitation to do so. Most people feel like their friends asking to date their exes isn't something that they would ever be asked. Especially not by someone who claims to be a close friend of theirs.
And again it's not about "caring about your ex" or "trying to check up on them." It's about the trust that's broken between friends when they make the decision to date someone that they know may have hurt you or been unfair to you or it simply didn't work out with.
Friends are supposed to be people you can confide in and trust, but how are you supposed to do that if they're storing all of your information to use for themselves?
Another reason and I really shouldn't have to tell you this, that you shouldn't date your friend's ex is because it also makes you look bad.
Why can't you find your own people? Why you wanna date someone that you know has kissed and possibly slept with a friend of yours? Does that not make you feel super creepy. I guess not if you're a slimy person with no morals.
I'm saying all of this to say, don't disrespect your friends in that way. Relationships are whatever but friendships should always be more important and cherished above all else.